Anno Dracula: Book 1

With the versatile voice talent of William Gaminara, acclaimed novelist Kim Newman explores the darkest depths of a reinvented Victorian London. It is 1888, and Queen Victoria has remarried, taking as her new consort the Wallachian Prince infamously known as Count Dracula. Peppered with familiar characters from Victorian history and fiction, the novel tells the story of vampire Geneviève Dieudonné and British spy Charles Beauregard as they strive to solve the mystery of the Ripper murders.

Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles

Imagine the twisted evil twins of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson and you have the dangerous duo of Professor James Moriarty - wily, snake-like, fiercely intelligent, terrifyingly unpredictable - and Colonel Sebastian Basher Moran - violent, politically incorrect, debauched. Together they run London crime, owning police and criminals alike. When a certain Irene Adler turns up on their doorstep with a proposition, neither man is able to resist.

Alien: Covenant Origins: The Official Prequel to the Blockbuster Film

The Covenant mission is the most ambitious endeavor in the history of Weyland-Yutani. A ship bound for Origae-6, carrying 2,000 colonists beyond the limits of known space, this is a make-or-break investment for the corporation - and for the future of all mankind. Yet there are those who would die to stop the mission. As the colony ship hovers in Earth orbit, several violent events reveal a deadly conspiracy to sabotage the launch.

The Massacre of Mankind

It has been 14 years since the Martians invaded England. The world has moved on, always watching the skies but content that we know how to defeat the Martian menace. Machinery looted from the abandoned capsules and war machines has led to technological leaps forward. The Martians are vulnerable to earth germs. The army is prepared. So when the signs of launches on Mars are seen, there seems little reason to worry. Unless you listen to one man, Walter Jenkins, the narrator of Wells' book.

The Atrocity Archives: Book 1 in The Laundry Files

Never volunteer for active duty... Bob Howard is a low-level techie working for a super-secret government agency. While his colleagues are out saving the world, Bob's under a desk restoring lost data. His world was dull and safe; but then he went and got Noticed. Now, Bob is up to his neck in spycraft, alternative universes, dimension-hopping terrorists, monstrous elder gods and the end of the world. Only one thing is certain: it will take more than 'control+alt+delete' to sort this mess out...

Lovecraft's Monsters

Prepare to meet the wicked progeny of the master of modern horror. In Lovecraft's Monsters, H. P. Lovecraft's most famous creations--Cthulhu, Shoggoths, Deep Ones, Elder Things, Yog-Sothoth, and more--appear in all their terrifying glory. Each story is a gripping new take on a classic Lovecraftian creature. Contributors include such literary luminaries as Neil Gaiman, Joe R. Lansdale, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Karl Edward Wagner, Elizabeth Bear, and Nick Mamatas.

Monster Hunter International

Five days after Owen Zastava Pitt pushed his insufferable boss out of a 14th story window, he woke up in the hospital with a scarred face, an unbelievable memory, and a job offer. It turns out that monsters are real. All the things from myth, legend, and B-movies are out there, waiting in the shadows. Some of them are evil, and some are just hungry. Monster Hunter International is the premier eradication company in the business. And now Owen is their newest recruit.

The Gallows Curse

The year is 1210 and a black force is sweeping England. A vengeful King John has seized control of the Church, leaving corpses to lie in consecrated ground, babies unbaptized, and the people terrified of dying in sin. In the village of Gastmere, the consequences grow darker still when Elena, a servant girl, is dragged into a conspiracy to absolve the sins of the lord of the manor. In desperation she visits the cunning woman, who has been waiting for just such an opportunity to fulfil an ancient curse conjured at the gallows.

Storm Front: The Dresden Files, Book 1

A call from a distraught wife, and another from Lt Murphy of the Chicago PD Special Investigation Unit makes Harry believe things are looking up, but they are about to get worse, much worse. Someone is harnessing immense supernatural forces to commit a series of grisly murders. Someone has violated the first law of magic: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Tracking that someone takes Harry into the dangerous underbelly of Chicago, from mobsters.

Will Save the Galaxy for Food

Space travel just isn't what it used to be. With the invention of Quantum Teleportation, space heroes aren't needed anymore. When one particularly unlucky ex-adventurer masquerades as famous pilot and hate figure Jacques McKeown, he's sucked into an ever-deepening corporate and political intrigue. Between space pirates, adorable deadly creatures, and a missing fortune in royalties, saving the universe was never this difficult!

Rivers of London: PC Peter Grant, Book 1

My name is Peter Grant and until January I was just probationary constable in that mighty army for justice known to all right-thinking people as the Metropolitan Police Service (as the Filth to everybody else). My only concerns in life were how to avoid a transfer to the Case Progression Unit--we do paperwork so real coppers don't have to--and finding a way to climb into the panties of the outrageously perky WPC Leslie May.

London Falling: The Shadow Police, Book One

Detective Inspector James Quill is about to complete the drugs bust of his career. Then his prize suspect, Rob Toshack, is murdered in custody. Furious, Quill pursues the investigation, co-opting intelligence analyst Lisa Ross and undercover cops Costain and Sefton. But nothing about Toshack's murder is normal. Toshack had struck a bargain with a vindictive entity, whose occult powers kept Toshack one step ahead of the law - until his luck ran out. Now, the team must find a 'suspect' who can bend space and time and alter memory itself. And they will kill again.

Hard Magic: Book I of the Grimnoir Chronicles

Jake Sullivan is a licensed private eye with a seriously hardboiled attitude. He also possesses raw magical talent and the ability to make objects in his vicinity light as a feather or as heavy as depleted uranium, all with a magical thought. It's no wonder the G-men turn to Jake when they need someoneto go after a suspected killer who has been knocking off banks in a magic-enhanced crime spree.

Norse Mythology

The great Norse myths are woven into the fabric of our storytelling - from Tolkien, Alan Garner and Rosemary Sutcliff to Game of Thrones and Marvel Comics. They are also an inspiration for Neil Gaiman's own award-bedecked, best-selling fiction. Now he reaches back through time to the original source stories in a thrilling and vivid rendition of the great Norse tales.

Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker star as the Doctor in these seven narrated full-cast TV soundtracks of classic Doctor Who TV serials. The stories are 'The Tomb of the Cybermen' (narrated by Frazer Hines); 'Doctor Who and the Silurians' (narrated by Caroline John); 'The Sea Devils' (narrated by Katy Manning); 'The Curse of Peladon' (narrated by Katy Manning); 'The Monster of Peladon' (narrated by Elisabeth Sladen); 'The Pirate Planet' (narrated by John Leeson); and 'Destiny of the Daleks' (narrated by Lalla Ward).

A Mask of Shadows: Frey & McGray, Book 3

It is 1889 and The Scottish Play is coming home. But before the darling couple of London theatre, Henry Irving and Ellen Terry, take their acclaimed Macbeth to the Edinburgh stage terror treads the boards. A grisly message found smeared across the cobbles in blood, foretelling someone's demise. As the bloody prophecies continue to appear Edinburgh's own beloved pair - Detective 'Nine-Nails' McGray and Inspector Ian Frey - enter the scene.

Interview With The Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles, Book 1

In a darkened room a young man sits telling the macabre and eerie story of his life - the story of a vampire, gifted with eternal life, cursed with an exquisite craving for human blood. Anne Rice's compulsively readable novel is arguably the most celebrated work of vampire fiction since Bram Stoker's Dracula which was published in 1897.

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

Winner of the Whitbread Prize for best first fiction. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a coming-out novel from Winterson, the acclaimed author of The Passion and Sexing the Cherry. The narrator, Jeanette, cuts her teeth on the knowledge that she is one of God's elect, but as this budding evangelical comes of age and comes to terms with her preference for her own sex, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household crumbles.

Based upon the graphic novels by Joe Harris - with creative direction from series creator Chris Carter - and adapted specifically for the audio format by aural auteur Dirk Maggs (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Alien: Out of the Shadows), Cold Cases marks yet another thrilling addition to the pantheon of X-Files stories. Featuring a mind-blowing and otherworldly soundscape of liquefying aliens, hissing creatures, and humming spacecraft, listeners get to experience the duo's investigations like never before.

Hyperion

On the world called Hyperion, beyond the law of the Hegemony of Man, there waits the creature called the Shrike. There are those who worship it. There are those who fear it. And there are those who have vowed to destroy it. In the Valley of the Time Tombs, where huge, brooding structures move backward through time, the Shrike waits for them all.

How to Be a Vigilante: A Diary

It's 1998. The Internet age is still in its infancy. Google has just been founded. Eighteen-year-old supermarket shelf-stacker Nigel Carmelite has decided that he's going to become a vigilante. There are a few problems: how is he going to even find crime to fight on the streets of Derbyshire? How will he create a superhero costume - and an arsenal of crime-fighting weaponry - on a shoestring budget?

Rotherweird

Rotherweird is a twisted, arcane murder-mystery with shades of Deborah Harkness, Hope Mirrlees and Ben Aaronovitch, Mervyn Peake and Edward Gorey at their disturbing best. The town of Rotherweird stands alone - there are no guidebooks, despite the fascinating and diverse architectural styles cramming the narrow streets, the avant-garde science and offbeat customs. Cast adrift from the rest of England by Elizabeth I, Rotherweird's independence is subject to one disturbing condition: nobody, but nobody, studies the town or its history.

The World Walker: The World Walker Series, Book 1

Just outside Los Angeles, a prisoner hidden away for 70 years sits up, gets off the bed and disappears through a solid wall. In Australia, a magician impresses audiences by producing real elephants. Nobody realizes it's not an illusion. Across the world, individuals and organizations with supernatural power suddenly detect the presence of something even they can't understand. At the center of it all, Seb Varden, a 32-year old musician with a secret in his past, slits his wrists, is shot dead and run over on the freeway.

Publisher's Summary

A brand-new edition with an additional novella, this critically-acclaimed, best-selling sequel to Anno Dracula will keep you mesmerised from beginning to end.

It is 1918 and Dracula is commander-in-chief of the armies of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The war of the great powers in Europe is also a war between the living and the dead. As ever, the Diogenes Club is at the heart of British Intelligence and Charles Beauregard and his protégé Edwin Winthrop go head-to-head with the lethal vampire flying machine that is The Bloody Red Baron...

Written by popular novelist and movie critic Kim Newman, The Bloody Red Baron takes the story forward into the 20th century.

What the Critics Say

"Stephen King assumes we hate vampires; Anne Rice makes it safe to love them, because they hate themselves. Kim Newman suspects that most of us live with them… Anno Dracula is the definitive account of that post-modern species, the self-obsessed undead.” -(New York Times)

It doesn't have the panache of its predecessor, but is still an entertaining and flamboyant listen. If you can get past the occasional ridiculousness (which you probably can if you're reading this), it's a well told romp, though without vast plot depth. Good performance - accents not always perfect, but this does not mar the whole.

The mix of fictional and real characters, some vampire and some 'warm' compete in the same way as the first in this series, Anno Dracula. However I was not immediately hooked by the lead characters this time. Obviously WW1 and Biggles flying aces are here along with Edgar Allen Poe, but their characters did not spark enough empathy for me I'm afraid. Of more interest if you are into WW1 flying aces perhaps?

the story is well read by William Gaminara but the story is confusing!! I have started listening to the story twice and now its just something that i'm listening to but not taking in. I thought that this was just my sort of story but you have to try and fill in the gaps with regard to how things came about in the story and only then do you get a sense of what your listening to. I wouldnt listen to anything else by Kim Newman.

Would you consider the audio edition of The Bloody Red Baron to be better than the print version?

Better? No. But it is a great companion to the print version. The depth of the presented world forces me to constantly look things up if I'm using the print copy, but the audio version allows me to just enjoy the story for what it is.

What other book might you compare The Bloody Red Baron to and why?

The only thing I could compare this too is the rest of Anno Dracula line and other works that toe the Wold Newton line such as Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Have you listened to any of William Gaminara’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This performance is easily as good as the one he offered for Anno Dracula. I was happy to have him back for this one. It makes the experience that much better when you have a quality narrator across an entire series.

Any additional comments?

Like Anno Dracula before it, this book is a lot of fun. The more you know about classic literature and World War I history, the better it gets as there's a lot of geekery to be had. If you don't know any of it, don't let that scare you away. This book is so much fun, it'll make you want to learn more to see how it fits together. When you get in that mood for "something different," this series fits the bill perfectly.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Darryl

Cedar Rapids, IA, United States

09/06/12

Overall

Performance

Story

"Good but..."

As much as I thoroughly enjoyed Anno Dracula, and was prepared for this sequel, something was lacking. I think overall it's hard to keep up the standards in series due in part to the fact that whatever newness made the original stand out, isn't new anymore. I still like the historical allusions and all the blending of real and imaginary/fictional characters, but I think the first one had it, and don't know if I'll go on if more show up in this set. I am looking forward to the Sherlock blend Newman has in Hound of D'Urbervilles and will try it.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

My 50 cents

30/07/16

Overall

Performance

Story

"Incomplete version"

This audiobook is missing the new, additional novella that is supposedly to come with the latest edition of the book. This is also described in the description of the audiobook!

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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